The fact is, that if the objections which are raised to the general doctrine of Evolution were not theological objections, their utter childishness would be manifest even to the most child-like of believers. But, if the evolution of all living forms, by gradual modification, is an historical fact, why should the attempt to reconstruct the details of that momentous history be regarded as less philosophical or less laudable than the attempt of a Niebuhr, or of a Mommsen, to build up from ruined monuments, fragmentary inscriptions, and obscure and often contradictory texts, a connected and intelligible history of Rome? Active error may advance knowledge in its efforts to establish itself; and nothing is more remarkable than the number of great things, from the discovery of America to that of the antiquity of man, which have been brought about by the attempt to establish erroneous views. But sitting still, and being afraid to stir, for fear of making mistakes, is certain to end in ruin in science as in practical life.

Professor Haeckel is not chargeable with the fault of sitting still, and, it may be, that he moves too quickly now and then. In his book there are some views which I, for one, do not agree with, but as to which it is just as likely I may be wrong as he. I wish he could be persuaded to take a more liberal view of the duration of life on the earth, though he is far less miserly on that point now than when the Schöpfungsgeschichte, formerly noticed in the ACADEMY, was published. I might desire that he would not mix up phylogenetic "Stamm"Stamm. bäume" with objective taxonomy; and I might wish that he would be a little milder with his honest opponents, though I heartily applaud his practice of dealing with critics of the other sort as mere ferae naturae.

But when all is said and done in the way of objection, the Anthropogenie is a real live book, full of power and genius, and based upon a foundation of practical original work, to which few living men can offer a parallel. If anybody can read it without profiting by the abundant information and fertile suggestions of new lines of thought which it contains, all I can say is, that I envy him; and if anybody can read it without being struck by its clearness and methodical comprehensiveness, and without being convinced that the general line of argument is sound, whatever may be thought of the details, all I can further say is, I do not envy him. I trust that, like the Schöpfungsgeschichte, the Anthropogenie may speedily find an English translator.

T. H. HUXLEY.

ON THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN THE
FORMATION OF MYTHS.

Über Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung Von A. Kuhn. (Berlin, 1874.) WHATEVER Dr. Kuhn writes on Comparative Mythology is welcome. We only wish he would write more. Whether he touches on the general principles of this new science, or unravels and interprets some of the ancient Aryan myths, we always recognise the sure hand of the master, we always learn something new, or receive at least a fresh impulse for further enquiry. Dr. Kuhn

has evidently been but little disquieted by "The little Dogs of Bretzwil and von Bretten." Undeterred by scorns and sneers, he carries on his quiet work, hardly noticing the weak expressions of incredulity on the part of those who, as he knows too well, have paid but little attention to a subject to which he has devoted the whole of his life. He carefully adds stone upon stone to the edifice of which he himself has laid the foundation. He re

members the manner in which Bopp's Comparative Grammar was received, and, like every honest scholar, he feels that truth is never in a hurry.

In the paper, lately read before the Berlin Academy, Über die Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung, Dr. Kuhn's object is to show that the mythopoeic power does not stop at a certain time, but continues to work in accordance with the varying character of each successive period of civilisation. His arguments are chiefly directed against some of my own views; or, I should rather say, against some views which Dr. Kuhn supposes to be mine, but which I could not recognise as my own without considerable qualifications. In my Essay on Comparative Mythology, published many years ago, my object was to show that there are certain myths which all Aryan languages share in common, and which must therefore have had their origin during a period when there was as yet no Sanskrit as different from Greek, no Latin as different from Celtic or Teutonic. I tried to show that, apart from Greek, Latin, Teutonic, or Celtic mythology, there was a common Aryan mythology, which could be treated with success by the comparative philologist only. It seemed to me that the very existence of Comparative Mythology depended on the recognition of this fact, and at the time when I was writing, I felt that no language could be too strong to impress this truth on the minds of Greek and Latin scholars. I therefore spoke of a mythopoeic period, preceding the first appearances of any national language or literature, a period in the history of the human mind perhaps the most difficult to understand, and the most likely to shake our faith in the regular progress of the human intellect. What lies beyond that point, the gradual formation of Aryan grammar, and the incipient divergence of dialects and languages, is intelligible enough. Again, the earliest concentration of political societies, the establishment of laws and customs, and the first beginnings of religion and poetry, seem all under the control of rational agencies. But between the two there is a gulf which it seems impossible for any philosophy to bridge over. That is the time when those myths were formed which, both in their general character and in the names of the principal actors, are the same in India, Greece, Italy, and Germany. No one would suppose that these myths could have been invented independently in different countries, and nothing will avail but the admission that they were developed during a period antecedent to the first beginnings of what may be called Indian, Greek, Italian, Teutonic, Celtic, and Slavonic mythology. But though at the beginning of my Essay I laid such stress on the neces

sity of admitting a mythopoeic period, previous to the separation of the Aryan race, I nowhere even hinted that at the expiration of that period the mythopoeic faculty became extinct. On the contrary, my object has always been to show how mythology must be understood in the very widest sense of the word, as the power of language reacting on thought in every sphere of intellectual activity, from the first dawn of civilisation to the latest philosophy of our own time. The Phlogiston, the Ether, the Atoms, the Animal Spirits, et hoc genus omne, I classed under the head of mythology as much as dragons and chimaeras; nay, when I read of Natural Selection and Spontaneous Generation, I doubt whether the virus mythologicum will ever be driven out of our intellectual constitution. What I believe became extinct at the end of that period which I called mythopoeic, par excellence, was not the myth-creating faculty, but those myths only which are common to all the Aryan languages. A myth about the Ganges, or a myth about the oracle of Dodona, cannot be referred to that pro-ethnic mythopoeic age from which we have received the name of Dyu, which afterwards was fixed under its various national aspects as Zevc, Jupiter, and Tyr. Dr. Kuhn is right when he says: "Max Müller hatte in seinem Essay on Comparative Mythology den Eintritt der Mythenbildung in die Zeit vor der Trennung der indogermanischen Völker versetzt;" but " und hat damit when he continues, ausgesprochen, dass eine Mythenbildung bei den einzelnen Völkern indogermanischen Ursprungs ausgeschlossen sei," I think everybody will see that I have not only not expressed this, but not even implied it.

It seems to me that the whole of my first essay and my later contributions to Comparative Mythology ought to have contradicted such a view. In order to show how even in late historical times myths arose in Greece and elsewhere, I referred to the myth concerning the foundation of Kyrene, which we know took place about Olymp. 30. The myth is: "The heroic maid of Kyrene, who lived in Thessaly, is loved by Apollo, and carried off to Libya." The fact was, "the town of Kyrene, in Thessaly, sent a colony to Libya under the auspices of Apollo. But, as if anticipating the possible misunderstanding of what I had said of the necessity of admitting a mythopoeic period, previous to the Aryan dispersion, I wrote in my Leetures on the Science of Language (ii. p. 391) :—

"The period in the history of language and thought which I have thus endeavoured to describe as characterised by what we may call two tendencies, the homonymous and the polyonymous, I shall henceforth call the mythic or mythological period, and I shall try to show how much that has hitherto been a riddle in the origin and spread of myths becomes intelligible, if considered in connexion with the early phases through which language and thought must necessarily pass. Before I enter, however, on a fuller explanation of my meaning, I think it right to guard, from the beginning, against two mistakes to which the name of mythic period might possibly give rise. What I call a period is not so in the strict sense of the word; it has no fixed limits that could is a time in the early history of all nations in be laid down with chronological accuracy. There which the mythological character predominates to such an extent that we may speak of it as the mythological period, just as we might call the age

in which we live the age of discoveries. But the tendencies which characterise the mythological period, though they necessarily lose much of that power with which, at one time, they swayed every

intellectual movement, continue to work under different disguises in all ages, even in our own, though perhaps the least given to metaphor, poetry, and mythology."

This passage, which Dr. Kuhn quotes himself, ought surely to have removed the idea, that I considered the mythopoeic faculty at an end as soon as the Aryan dialects assumed each its own national independence. I believe Dr. Kuhn would hold as strongly as anybody that there was a mythopoeic period common to the whole Aryan race; that there are myths which are in their beginnings neither Indian, nor Greek, nor German, and the very existence of which would be inconceivable without the admission of a common mythopoeic period preceding the separation of the Aryan race. It is in the treatment of these myths that comparative mythology has achieved its greatest triumphs, and with the denial of such a period some of Dr. Kuhn's

most brilliant discoveries would fall to the ground. What Dr. Kuhn, however, shows very well is that even myths which, by the whole of their character, belong to a national period, which are decidedly Greek or Indian nay which, even in Greece and India, betray their modern originmay be traced, nevertheless, to beginnings that lie beyond the frontiers of these countries. Myths adapt themselves to the atmosphere of each country, to the circumstances of each age. We may safely say that no myth concerning the sea could have existed before the separation of the Aryan race. The sea was unknown to the Aryans before they separated; they had no word for it, no thought of it. Yet the name of an old Aryan deity, Varuna, originally the god of the covering sky, was transformed by the Indians and adapted to their new requirements when they wanted a god of the sea; so that Varuna in the later Sanskrit became the god of the sea, while in Greek Ouranos remained, as in the Veda, the god of the sky. The very name of Asura, in the sense of evil spirit, which it has throughout in the myths quoted by Dr. Kuhn, betrays its modern origin. It meant, originally, spirits only, without any reference to their moral character. It afterwards took the meaning of powerful spirits, was drawn more and more towards the side of the overwhelming and destructive powers of nature, assumed gradually a difference from the bright and beneficent Vasus or Devas, and became at last the name of their enemies. All these changes, which are clearly perceptible in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, must have taken place before myths of the battles between Asuras and Devas could have grown up. Yet, as Dr. Kuhn has well shown, the character of their battles is but a reflection of the battles

between the old divine Asuras and the old evil spirits such as Vritra, the robber of the cows; and even the battle between Zeus and the Gigantes, who had stolen the cows of Helios, is but a faint echo of a myth which in its origin was Aryan, and not Greek, which dates in fact from that period which I called the mythopoeic.

I abstain for the present from entering on

The Effect of Rainfall on Barometrical Pressure. -Dr. J. Hann has published an interesting paper on this long-debated question in No. 19 of the Zeitschrift der Oesterreichischen Meteorologischen Gesellschaft for 1874, in which he criticises Reye's views, who maintains that the condensation of vapour to the form of clouds and to rain produces a marked reduction of pressure at the place. Reye has qualified this general statement by admitting that, if the rain is produced by the introduction of a mass of cold air into a warm and damp stratum, the barometer may rise during the rain; and so, finally, the only case to which his reasoning applies is that of a "courant ascendant" such as gives rise to the rains of the tropics.

Dr. Hann has taken Bergsma's hourly observations for Batavia, of which we have now a series for three years, and finds that the barometer stands lower before the rain begins than during or after it; and, moreover, that the diurnal curve of the barometer is not in the least affected by the heaviest rainfalls.

He therefore arrives at the following conclusion:-"The condensation of vapour has no noticeable influence on the variations of pressure. The formation of barometrical minima cannot, therefore, be attributed to the rainfall."

The author next takes up the question of what the effects are which are produced in a column of warm and damp air which rises to a higher level, and shows that, if we suppose, e. g., one kilogram of vapour condensed, the entire amount of latent heat set free by this condensation must be abstracted from the air, and also the temperature of the latter must be reduced to the point corresponding to the tension of the vapour left in it after condensation. The mass of air must therefore contract, more air must flow in to fill up the space, and the barometer at the foot of the column must rise. In the case of the rain of the ascending current, heat is requisite in order to cause the air to expand, and any latent heat set free by condensation simply tends to reduce the rate of diminution of temperature of the entire

mass.

Dr. Hann assumes the upward movement of moist air to be the most active cause of precipitation, and in the subsequent numbers of the same journal he proceeds to treat of the causes which produce such a movement.

The Distribution of Temperature in an ascending Current of Air.-In Nos. 21 and 22 of the same journal Dr. Hann deals with this question on the principles laid down by Sir W. Thomson, Reye, and Peslin, arriving at the following conclusions. If no condensation of vapour takes place, dry air falls about 1° C. for each 100 mètres of ascent, and rises to the same extent for each 100 mètres of descent, whatever the level of departure or the temperature may have been. The presence of vapour in the air, if not condensed, hardly alters

this result.

are next discussed, especially on the occasion of a thunder-storm in Switzerland investigated by Billwiller, and it appears that the reduction of temperature is not nearly 1° C. for each hundred

mètres, a result confirmed by Glaisher's balloon observations.

It is evident that as a descending current cannot possibly give rise to the condensation of any vapour it contains, the rain of our S.W. winds, the return trade, is not due to moisture brought from the equator, as Maury always maintained. If this upper return current were charged with moisture, the sky in the trade wind zone must always be cloudy, which is distinctly contrary to fact.

Dr. Hann concludes with some remarks on the origin of cyclones, in which he considers that the fall of the barometer is a purely mechanical effect of the rotatory motion of the air, and on the whole agrees with Reye's idea that the motive force in the phenomenon is the latent heat of the condensed vapour; but he shows that mere condensation of

vapour will not give rise to a cyclonic movement in the air; this does not come into existence until an ascensional movement has been started, and it increases in intensity by the action of the surrounding cooler air flowing in to fill up the space vacated by that which has risen.

Marine Meteorology in Germany.-The institution at Hamburg, founded in 1867 as the Norddeutsche Seewarte, under Herr W. von Freeden, has at last been made a government institution, with that gentleman as director, assisted by Captain Koldewey as chief of the Marine Department. The allowance for establishment is 3,2501.; and for the year 1875, 3,7401. This is a step in the right direction, as the office has done some firstrate work; but we could have wished that the allowance had been higher.

Solar Radiation.-In the same journal, Mr. F. W. Stow gives the results of five years' observations on this subject, taken by himself and several of his friends at various stations in the United Kingdom. He finds that radiation attains its maximum in May at every station except London: the minimum radiation is in December.

Western stations show a greater effect of radiation than eastern ones, and proximity to the sea appears to diminish the power of the sun's rays, owing to the abundance of vapour in the air.

The instruments used are black-bulb maximum thermometers in vacuo, which have all been compared by Mr. Stow.

GEOLOGY.

As geologists grow bolder in their speculations on the climatic conditions of the Glacial Period, it becomes more difficult to suggest an efficient cause by which these conditions may have been brought about. A critical examination of the various theories which have been proposed to account for the climate of the great Ice Age has been recently contributed to the Quarterly Journal of Science by Mr. Thomas Belt, whose observations on glacial phenomena in Nicaragua and in Siberia have been of considerable interest. Having dismissed as unsatisfactory Sir Charles Lyell's theory of a change in the relative position of the continents and the ocean, and Mr. Croll's theory of an increase of the ellipticity of the Earth's orbit, Mr. Belt advocates the hypothesis that great changes have occurred in the obliquity of the ecliptic. While leaving the astronomer to discuss the possibility of such changes, and differing on many points from Lieutenant-Colonel Drayson, who recently advocated a similar theory, Mr. Belt approaches the question from the standpoint of a physical geologist, and seeks to show that a sufficient obliquity of the ecliptic would satisfy many of the conditions required by the glacial problem. Unlike Mr. Croll, he believes that the maximum This contemporaneous glaciation of both hemiof cold was simultaneous in the two hemispheres. spheres would abstract from the sea a large body around of water, represented by the ice piled up

"quatercentenary " of Buonarroti was announced for the coming month of March, is perhaps an indifferent matter. Under no circumstances is the publication to be regretted, since it serves to revive our memories of an immortal craftsman, not only through the medium of description in luxurious type and binding, but by means of beautiful illustrations.

Mr. Black's "Life" lays no claim, he says, "to the higher and graver title of a biography." It is followed by bulky appendices, including extracts from some of the artist's letters; a chronology of the principal events in his life; a classified catalogue of his works under three heads; a special catalogue of paintings, drawings, and models in England; a bibliography, and an index of drawings. The volume is a counterpart in many respects of that which Mr. Black and Mrs. Heaton wrote last year in illustration of Da Vinci, but why it assumed its present form it is difficult to say, unless we suppose that it was modelled on the life and commentary in Lemonnier's last edition of Vasari. În truth, the "story," as Mr. Black calls it, is in many respects a paraphrase of - Vasari and Condivi, followed by a chronology copied, with some literal alterations, from that compiled by Milanesi and Carlo Pini. The disadvantage of this arrangement is one which naturally clings to an old book with a modern commentary; for the commentator dares not alter the text, and necessarily appends to it additional dates and information; but a writer of the present day might do better than supplement in this manner a work which has not the advantage of being three hundred years old. For by following this course he forces the reader to jump from the biography to the commentary, when-as in the case of the Piccolomini Chapel at Siena or Marshall de Gie's David-no allusion of any kind is to be found in the former, and the omission

is only made good in the latter, or he leaves the reader for a time in ignorance as to some curious incidents in the master's life. Irrespective of this, Mr. Black's life is cleverly sketched; and, though it does not embody all the research of modern criticism, is fairly full. It errs in some points, but nowhere more than in the following, of which a statement shall be given by way of illustration.

It was a peculiarity of Michael Angelo that under the influence of a certain class of

feelings he felt the inward necessity of a rapid and secret change of place. Before the banishment of Piero de' Medici in 1474, he withdrew quickly to Bologna. During the papacy of Julius II. he fled from Rome with a speed and secrecy only equalled by Constantine when he baffled the watchfulness of Galerius. When Florence was besieged in 1529, he sewed his money in his clothes and rode to Ferrara and Venice in feverish haste. Two of these events Mr. Black correctly relates. The third, for some unexplained reason, he attenuates or ignores. In July 1529, Michael Angelo, being one of the superintendents of the fortifications at Florence, was sent by order of the balia to study the works of Ferrara. He was presented on this occasion to the Duke Alfonso of Este, who showed him his gallery, and extracted from him the promise of a picture.

In September, being haunted by visions of Malatesta Baglione's probable treason, he escaped from Florence through a postern, rode to Ferrara, and thence, after a short interview with the Duke, to Venice. On September 30 he was proclaimed an outlaw and threatened with the penalty of treason if he did not appear in Florence by October 6. On October 13 he signified his wish to return through Giugni, the Florentine envoy at Ferrara. On October 20 the Florentine balia wrote to Giugni, informing him that they had given safe-conduct to Michael Angelo. On November 9, Giugni wrote the pass with which Michael Angelo re-entered Florence. These facts are recorded in official documents printed by Gaye. Mr. Black sets every one of them aside, saying that during the delay incurred by Philibert of Chalons to advance on Tuscany, Michael Angelo left Florence for Venice by way of Ferrara. He then reduces Buonarroti's two interviews with Alfonso to one, and expresses doubts as to whether the motives for the journey will ever be divulged. Some unavowed mission from the Florentine government is obscurely hinted at. It is denied that Buonarroti was outlawed; and excuses are made for the artist on the ground that "he had been assured that so rotten was the edifice of Florentine liberty, that a few days or even hours might put the city into the hands of the Medici."

We may regret again that Mr. Black should not have told us something decisive as to the growth of the style of Michael Angelo, or how much he derived from his master Ghirlandaio, or the classic Greek; how much from Donatello, Masaccio, Lippi, and the rugged Signorelli. His well-known study of anatomy in convent mortuaries, and his relations with the great professor of Pisa, Realdo Colombo, are passed over in silence. Our author could not forget, and for that reason he dwells alike on the friendly ties which bound the artist to Vittoria Colonna, and the unfriendly ones which he kept up with Aretino; but he might have remembered more of the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, in whose palace Michael Angelo lived; the lessons of the great Poliziano, the friendship of Claudio Tolomei and Annibal Caro. There is some bareness too in the mention of Sebastian del Piombo as a mere pupil of Buonarroti, when

we know that Sebastian was a master before

he came to Rome; too curt is the allusion to the relations with Bramante and Raphael. Above all, the double error should have been avoided of confounding the Farnesina with the Farnese Palace, or making Michael Angelo in the Life pay a visit to Raphael which in the Chronology is paid to Del Piombo. J. A. CROWE.

FRENCH CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

Paris: Dec 25, 1874.

It is dark and cold, and suow is falling and melting as it falls. The children, whose holidays began yesterday evening, are playing listlessly, not so much amused with the playthings or the books which Christmas has brought them as thinking of what New Year's day will bring. These two festivals are only six days apart, and the one injures the other. Here, the Christmas tree does not display the gleam of its thousand little tapers

as in the North, and New Year's day especially is a forced loan. Imagination does not console us for the truth.

When there is no frost during these weeks, the year seems to be foundering in a sea of mud, and to suck you in with the sinking wreck. The lapse of time, the deaths of children, the strength of manhood extinguished, abandoned attempts, double-faced oaths, haunt your brain, like that of a drowning man in his agony. During these hours of gloom, one can neither wander through the streets, nor look at paintings, nor try to sketch a Japanese work of art, nor write a fragment of the volumes piled on one's table. a book in preparation, nor turn over the leaves of When the lighted lamp is brought, it recalls you to life indeed, but to the life of a prisoner; it is like the gleam of the oil-lamp in a railway carriage when you are rushing swiftly through a long cold tunnel.

Yet I will overcome these gloomy phantoms. I will finish this year 1874 by telling you how deeply touched I am at the large and cordial share which you give my correspondence in this review. Free at Paris in the République Française, free at London in the ACADEMY, I am assuredly one of the most favoured of "citizens of the world." I know no other way of expressing my gratitude than by working with yet greater energy, and speaking with yet greater frankness than before.

I will also, to clear my brain and nerve my gained in power of criticism as much as she has heart, tell you that my country seems to have lost in prestige. It is in vain that the Bonapartists are hovering about France, stretching out their necks and croaking like ravens. She is still stretched upon the ground; a thousand black fetters bind her down. But she is not dead. New blood is replacing, drop by drop, the blood which has gushed in torrents from the wounds the Empire has given her. In Slavonic tales there is a man who hears the grass growing; he who listens can hear the sound of healthy life in the veins of our rising generation.

Last year, New Year's Day was a nullity as regards gift-books. This year the publishers have taken heart. I shall speak of a few books. Not to give a catchword for advertisements, but with the object of disengaging the main ideas which be as brief as possible. I shall often try to put the have severally inspired these publications, I shall whole of a detailed criticism into a simple epithet, addressing those who for almost ten months have accepted in the ACADEMY my modes of seeing, feeling, and judging.

The first of these books is the History of a Fortress, text and drawings by Viollet-le-Duc. In giving it the first place I am not obeying a feeling of party spirit or of patriotism. But a successful work of art is only enhanced when it is the out

authentic monuments.

come of a situation, when it is the soul of one's native land which dictates it, paints it, sculptures it, sings it. This is a manly book which recalls to the reader that he must jealously protect the integrity of his country's soil, and teaches him the history of the art of defence by historical hypotheses which bear the stamp of probability, and by restorations based on scattered fragments of Last year M. Viollet-leDuc gave us the History of a House, that is, how to build a country seat according to the owners' taste, from the day they have settled on its position in the park, to the day of their moving into it. This year the man excels the artist. M. Viollet-le-Duc, in his recent candidature for the Municipal Council of Paris, made one of the wisest speeches which ever came from the lips of one belonging to the governing classes, or rather to the elite of our new social strata: "Up to 1870, I had never troubled myself with politics." His book shows what help our artists, hitherto indifferent to the social movement, may bring by their mighty privilege of spreading ideas among the people by means of imitative art.

M. Viollet-le-Duc's publications are well known, and, I believe, highly appreciated, in England. The Dictionary and Conversations on Architecture, the Dictionnaire raisonné du Mobilier français pendant le Moyen-âge, are works of vast compass which may be open to criticism in their details, but which have had in France a considerable influence on all minds free from the tutelage of the Institute. The apostle of the doctrine of Lassus, the illustrious architect of the Romantic period, he has grouped round him a whole school of architects possessed by a passion for our national arts, while the School of Rome was celebrating all the inconsistencies of the pseudo-Greek and the pseudo-Roman. It is to the School of Lassus and of Viollet-le-Duc that we owe the preservation and restoration of all our Gothic cathedrals, the most magnificent jewel of our artistic crown in the past. He is a vanquished Gaul, and not a Latin slave.

The idea is as follows. There is a plateau situated at the junction of a river and a broad brook running through a valley. This plateau is the key of the valley of the Saóne. From time immemorial it has been utilised, first, for the personal defence of the earliest inhabitants, then for that of the Roman legions, next by the feudal lords; it was fortified by Vauban, and in 1814 it stopped the march of the Allies; in 1870 it might again have effected a diversion on the flank of the Prussians had it been armed and defended. Each historical period gives rise to a system of defence appropriate to the new weapons, and to a siege. You know one of the most interesting parts of the Dictionary of Architecture is devoted to the art of fortifications. Here, as there, M. Viollet-le-Duc has called in the pencil to the help of the pen. The woodcuts with which he has lavishly interspersed the text, representing attacks on the ramparts, sorties by the besieged, burning towers, ancient engines of war, effects of artillery, are

sketched with a brightness, a life, a vividi ess only to be attained by a consummate archaeologist who is at the same time an artist of no second-rate powers.

M. Viollet-le-Duc was appointed Colonel of Civil Engineers at the beginning of the siege of Paris. He had some very ingenious and very practical plans of defence. The military engineers would not so much as hear the civilian's name. Helped by the population of Paris, whose despair at having been kept idle can never have the full meed of glory which it deserves, the most sober thinkers believe that he might have broken the lines of investment. Those lines once broken, with Gambetta beyond, who would venture to say that France might not have burst her bonds?

lies.

The public now are conscious of all these errors. They are more serious. The study, or if you will, the reading of geography is making the most undeniable progress in our schools and famiYou are a people of navigators. You know geography as the Cossacks know how to ride. We are a people of peasants. Till the day when railways furrowed our departments, some villagers had never made their way even to the neighbouring town. I am not exaggerating. The "tour of France" formerly made by our workmen contributed more than books to the emancipation of their minds. Even at the present day the Frenchman is not easily induced to stir, but he has a growing curiosity for what is foreign. A publication founded in 1860 by M. Edouard Charton, and issued by Messrs. Hachette under the title of Le Tour du Monde, a collection of contemporary travels, now reckons its subscribers by tens of thousands. You are aware that M. Edouard Charton was formerly a disciple of Saint-Simon, and founded in 1833 the Picturesque Magazine, on the model of your magazines, and that this popular publication is still in existence, after having exercised a very wholesome influence, by its text as well as by its woodcuts.

L'Inde des Rajahs, after having appeared in the Tour du Monde, has just appeared in one large and

admirably printed volume. It is the account of a journey in Central India and in the Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal. The author's name is Louis Rousselet. In the course of his five years' stay, I should think the correspondents of the English papers will have more than once mentioned the presence of the French traveller in your possessions. I think it is only an act of international politeness and justice to reproduce the closing lines of his book:

"De la part des Anglais, l'accueil dont je fus l'objet ne fut ni moins sympathique, ni moins courtois. Nul soupçon, nulle jalousie, ne vinrent entraver mes recherches. Bien au contraire, je rencontrai partout la plus franche hospitalité, une cordialité touchante, et même je dois dire l'appui le plus sincère." M. Rousselet gives in support of his descriptions 317 engravings done on wood by our best draughtsmen from his photographs and sketches. I will not dwell on sites and types, monuments and interiors, which special publications, and marvellous photographs particularly, have popularised among you. To mention but two artists, I will only dwell on M. de Neuville's really remarkable rendering of human beings, and M. Thérard's of architectural exteriors. Photography is the most cruel enemy of academic doctrines. It accustoms the eyes to the reality of artistic objects, as chemistry, that most cruel enemy of metaphysical entities, accustoms the mind to the reality of phenomena. We must commend the editors for having required of the artists-I count fourteen contributors to the book, all of more or less eminence to confine themselves to the literal rendering of the documents entrusted to tham, instead of allowing them, as was the custom until very lately, to arrange scenes which set at defiance the bearing, habits, passions, prejudices peculiar to each race, to each people, according to the degree of latitude, climate, origin, and contact with European civilisation. ginning of my letter, that there is a higher average Here, then, is the proof of what I said at the be

of critical sense in France.

I will mention briefly a book of information, trustworthy, though greatly compressed, on the History of Costume in France from the earliest times to the close of the eighteenth century. It is by M. Quicherat, the learned Director of the Ecole des Chartes. This work appeared in fragments long years ago in the Picturesque Magazine. Hachette have now republished it in a large octavo volume, illustrated with 480 woodcuts from authentic documents. It is a good summary for the use of general readers, and even of men of letters who require a concise and brief scholarly

work.

Messrs.

I am anxious to come to publications on the Arts, but I see that I have very little blank paper left, and your bibliographical department is so well-informed that I shall scarcely be able to tell you of any books which have not been brought under your notice in the course of the year. However, I am bound to point out that never in France was there so considerable a group of scholars devoted to the study of original documents. The impulse was given, about the time of the Revolution of 1848, by some pupils of the Ecole des Chartes, of whom M. Anatole de Montaiglon is the type. These were joined by workers such as M. Paul Mantz and Ph. de Chennevières. The Archives of French Art, the Abecedario of Mariette, the Memoirs of the Members of the Old Academy of Painting, appeared, in spite of the culpable indifference of the public and the blind jealousy of the critics, friends of the Institute, who felt what a blow this scholarship would strike at their ignorant and parrot-like system of aesthetics. The impulse was given. It has taken a fresh start in our days, with more suppleness, less rigour than our predecessors had employed.

Edmond de Goncourt, left alone since his brother's lamentable death, has just republished, in two volumes, their joint history of Art in the Eighteenth Century (Rapilly): in a highly-finished

literary form, it is an ardent appreciation, at once enthusiastic and teeming with facts, of the work and life of Chardin, Boucher, Greuze, the St. Aubins, the vignettists, &c. Very shortly will appear a volume devoted entirely to the work of Watteau, an index of his paintings and engravings known in museums, libraries, and private collections.

M. Guiffrey has reprinted the whole series of Exhibition catalogues from the foundation of the Academy to 1800, with explanatory notes (Baur). The catalogues of the rival Academy of St. Luke complete a repertory which enables us to follow from year to year the productions both of the masters and of the most forgotten painters during that admirable period of the eighteenth century in France.

M. Lecoy de la Marche has collected, in one volume (Didier) documents from the archives of the Academy of France at Rome, which he had previously communicated to the Gazette des Beaux

Arts.

M. Charles Gérard, a lawyer, has gone farther back into the history of the past. He has given us, under the title of The Artists of Alsace during the Middle Ages, a collection of notes, often supplemented by appreciative comments, which reveal a wholly French national origin precisely where the Germans violently assert their priority.

I must also mention the Inventory of the Furniture of Catherine de Medicis, drawn up by M. E. Bonnaffé, from the MSS. of the National Library, with notes showing a perfect knowledge of the Renaissance. M. Bonnaffé possesses a very choice collection of French works of art. Lastly, a publication of a very special character, executed in chromolithography by Messrs. Morel-French Flags, by M. Gustave Desjardins, pupil of the Ecole des Chartes. It is incomprehensible why such a subject should never yet have been adequately possessed no national flag-that is, no ensign treated. M. Desjardins has collected facts utterly unknown. For instance, he proves that France uniform, universal and obligatory-until the French Revolution. Another equally curious revelation is that modern French society has adopted without suspicion the three colours which were the privilege of the royal livery-red, white, and

blue!

This review of Christmas books is of course very

incomplete. It marks, however, two tendencies: the one in the direction of topographical accuracy and ethnographical precision in books of travel; the other in that of the sources which allow us to

reconstitute in their true light and bearings the artistic personalities and events of our past. Under the Empire, only some sixty copies were printed of the latter series of books; now more than two hundred copies are subscribed for before the book is on sale. PH. BURTY.

NOTES AND NEWS.

A PORTRAIT of the Dean of Christchurch has been completed by Mr. Watts, R.A., during the present year. Mr. Watts has been remarkably successful in getting the likeness, and in rendering the character of the large and strongly-marked features of the Dean without catching the faintest shade of caricature, or running into any undue harshness.

The portrait, which is to be placed in the hall of the college, will appear, it is hoped, at the next exhibition of the Royal Academy.

MR. MILLAIS, R.A., will again show in force as a portrait painter, and his portrait of a young lady (Miss Tennant), executed during the past summer, is reckoned one of his most successful efforts in this direction. Mr. Millais never gets the accent of refined manners and luxuriant ele

gance which some French painters - notably M. Carolus Duran-contrive to impart to the heroines of birth and fashion; but he commands the springs of a life and reality untouched by any of his contemporaries.